


Clowder

by kinosternon



Category: Nabari no Ou, しまなみ誰そ彼 | Shimanami Tasogare (Manga)
Genre: Ace Headcanons, Cat Cafe, Crossover, Future Fic, Gen, ambiguous labels and ambiguous relationships ftw, dubious photography terminology, headcanons abound, meet-cute for at least 2 sets of BFFs imho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22047298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinosternon/pseuds/kinosternon
Summary: Gift fic for the Yuhki Kamatani Secret Santa 2019.Miharu and Yukimi go to a new cat café so Yukimi can blog about it. Miharu photographs some interesting people, and Yukimi conducts an impromptu interview about some local NPOs.
Relationships: Kaname Tasuku & Tsubaki Touma, Rokujou Miharu & Yukimi Kazuhiko, Yukimi Kazuhiko & Anonymous (Shimanami Tasogare)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Clowder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nyanja14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyanja14/gifts).



> Some disclaimers: I know _so little_ about photography, y'all. So little. Also, I only have the Japanese version of _Shimanami Tasogare_ , and my Japanese isn't that good, so I apologize for any inaccuracies, especially inconsistencies with the English translation. 

Mid-morning sunlight stretched across the room in a way that made light balance difficult. Where the light wasn't shining through the window, bouncing off the over-polished floors and also anything else that was remotely reflective, there were darkly-edged shadows that would never expose properly.

Miharu had gotten a sense of some kinds of lighting years ago, and was already aware that a number of his shots were probably going to be subpar, fancy digital camera or no. 

At least his subjects seemed pretty happy. Even if one of them was pretending he was grumpy. 

"Oi, kid, what're you doing? You're supposed to take pictures of the cats, not me." 

"The cats like you," Miharu said matter-of-factly. "It gives these a cozy feel." 

"...Fine," Yukimi grumbled. "But no headshots. I'm not using anything with my face in it in the article." 

"Maybe not for the article," Miharu said, lining up a shot from across the room of a calico half in sunlight and half in shadow. It probably wouldn't turn out, but if it did it would be a nicely dynamic shot. Besides, her eyes were pretty. "But you haven't updated your portrait on the blog since it went up. You look different now." 

"I do not!" 

Miharu didn't dignify that with a verbal response, instead turning and sizing up Yukimi in the lens. Yukimi raised an eyebrow at him. 

Though the viewfinder, the details stood out to him more starkly than usual, the sort of thing he'd usually only notice on a stranger. The crow's feet deepening at the eyes seemed new—and Yukimi had always had laugh lines, but recently they'd gotten deeper. The bags under his eyes didn't used to puff like that, though some of that was probably getting up early to pick Miharu up from university and get them all the way back to this cat café in time for a proper interview. 

The gray hair coming in at Yukimi's sideburns and starting in on his forelock, Miharu had noticed a little while back. Not that Yukimi tried to cover it up—the past few years he'd even started leaving off the headband more often, letting his hair stick out any which way most days as long as it stayed out of his eyes. He'd never cut it all the way down, though. He probably still had a long time before he went entirely gray, but Miharu noted absently that when he did, it would probably look good on him. 

All he said aloud, though, was, "Act natural." 

"That is a useless thing to say to a model," Yukimi grumbled, but he looked down anyway at the cat splayed across his lap, one large hand expertly rearranging him so it didn't fall off his knee as it stretched luxuriously in the sunlight. It was a gray cat, fluffy as a cloud and, Miharu guessed from the one slitted eye he could see at his angle, _extremely_ pleased with itself. 

Yukimi seemed pleased with his charge, too. Miharu took quick advantage of the distraction. The way Yukimi's head tilted down at the corner, a tender smile playing at the corner of his mouth...it would probably end up overexposed, washed out, but Miharu dove in to get a better angle, anyway. It was the sort of face that Yukimi seldom consciously made, and yet it seemed so utterly _him_ that something in Miharu's stomach thrilled in recognition. 

Getting a good shot of someone you knew was simultaneously harder and easier than doing it for a stranger. 

He hadn't had a lot of practice working in portraiture _or_ candids until he'd gone away to college, but the photography club there had a couple of ardent leaders who'd set up a lot of events and assignments for willing members. Since he'd started there, Miharu had worked on photo essays and candids, abstracts and landscapes and a great deal of styles that he'd never known existed, that went well outside the bounds of his experience of journalism photography, which Yukimi had trained him in since middle school. 

It hadn't been easy, sometimes. He'd come into photography so randomly that it had felt odd at first to realize that he'd been doing it at least as long as about half of the members, that he was well-trained and _good_ at it. At the same time, the parts around it, the talking to people who weren't Yukimi, the learning about art and exhibitions and social media and the rest of what he was realizing was a massive industry...all that had been new. 

It still threatened to overwhelm him, sometimes, this sharp, personal, important field he'd ended up caring about so much. So when Yukimi had mentioned a proposal he'd gotten for an offshoot of one of his existing contracts, a series of features on cat cafés, offering to help had felt like he was coming home in more ways than one. 

...Right down to the weirdness of bringing some of what he'd learned right back with him. He wouldn't have thought about trying to do portrait work for Yukimi before. Even Yukimi didn't seem as surprised as he was by this drive to see that his old mentor get a new portrait, maybe see himself the way he was, now. 

"All right, that's enough of me," Yukimi said, finally. "If you're so interested in shots with human subjects, why don't you ask the owner for some pictures? And you can always talk to the other visitors." 

Miharu felt the same old tightening in his chest, felt his throat close reflexively. The sensations were familiar to him by now—the feeling of being pinned under stares, when people actually noticed the one holding the camera, never really went away. He'd gotten better at it, though, and it would ruin the game to let Yukimi see that he was nervous. So he shrugged, and turned, and meandered across to the counter, behind which the owner was, by the sound of it, going through litter boxes. 

...Okay, so that was probably _too_ realistic of a picture to share of this place. That was fine. Miharu made arrangements to talk with her later, and then edged over towards the other two clients they were currently sharing the main room with. 

Miharu had always had a certain ability to avoid notice until someone consciously went looking for him, and he indulged in it a bit here, looking over the other two. Two young men, as far as he could tell; around his age, probably. One had about half a head on him in height, and the other had more; they were conversing quietly over a cat that the shorter one was stroking in the cat tree. 

Miharu, watching them, noted that their backs were to the sun and they were huddled too close together for a good shot from their current position. He'd have to ask them to move if they agreed, but he was reluctant to interrupt. They seemed...tense. 

_Oh_. 

It was a tension that he'd seen sometimes in Raikou and Gau. He'd seen it more often when he was much younger, when they were still early on in their dating. 

They weren't holding hands, or anything that obvious. The shorter one was holding himself still—a little too still—and though the other was talking calmly and casually, his posture seemed a bit forced. They were making a little box around the cat—it was surprising that it hadn't gotten irritated, being surrounded like that—and it also seemed to be a shared distraction, another barrier between them. 

He wanted to talk to them even less now that he'd seen a little bit about how they were talking. It would be rude to interrupt, anyway. So he ducked around the rest of the café, getting shots of individual cats and then going to take a picture of the bulletin board where their basic names and relevant information were laid out. 

Miharu was about to go back to bother the owner again when the door at the front jingled. 

The two people who swept in were quiet, but the owner stepped over, casual and happy, as they came through the second door into the cat room. 

"Misora-san," Miharu heard across the quiet room, "You look nice today." 

He caught a glance over. A young person—younger than him, at least—a little soft around the middle, with a rounded face, freckles, a shy glance that didn't want to meet anyone head-on. An outfit and a physique, and an...well, everything and nothing, really...that made part of him sit up and pay attention, part unearned curiosity and, more noteworthy, a tiny hint of recognition. 

He watched the way the owner smiled down at the young person, noticed that her attention wasn't being reciprocated, and smoothly changed tacks to their companion. He turned back to the back corner, and saw that the two who'd been talking to each other had ended their conversation, at least for the moment. The shorter one's hand was still scratching the cat he stood beside on the top of his head, but was looking between the newcomers. 

The other newcomer was tall, with long hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had stood a couple of steps ahead of the younger person at first, but now abruptly abandoned them, sweeping off to a corner window and picking up a tuxedo tabby along the way. There was a little more conversation, but the younger person didn't say much, and the owner eventually left them to their own devices with a happy wave. 

Miharu, who had let himself slide into a corner to observe under the guise of snapping a few shots of two cats sharing a hammock, considered his options, braced himself, and towards the young men he'd spotted before, who hadn't yet begun their conversation again. 

"Excuse me," he said politely. They turned to face him, and he felt the smile he used with strangers come across his face, albeit a bit smaller than usual. "I'm working with the journalist over there," he said, gesturing over at Yukimi, "to take photos to use in an article about this place. Is it okay if I take some pictures of you with the cats? You don't have to show your faces." 

Watching people respond to this was always interesting. Some people, he could instantly tell, were not interested; he tried to avoid asking those, because a whole lot of people would say yes and then proceed to feel uncomfortable about it, making things awkward for everyone involved. Then there were people who were nervous about the idea, but ended up getting over it in time. It was impossible to guess with perfect accuracy which people were, but the taller boy at least looked like the sort who would say no if he wanted. 

That wasn't what happened, though. They both stared at him for a moment, and then looked at each other, assessing. 

Something passed between them, faster and more complex than Miharu could follow, and then the taller one asked, "What do you think, Tasuku?" 

The shorter boy immediately blushed, starry-eyed, and Miharu hid any reaction. His old blank mask was rusty, but he could pull it out when needed, and he didn't want to interrupt what was apparently an important moment. 

When Tasuku looked up, he stared at Miharu for a very long time. Miharu finally tilted his head, letting his expression turn dry. Tasuku stiffened for a moment, opening his mouth and stuttering out a reply. 

"T-that's, fine," he said, voice jerking. "Go ahead. Um, should we pet the cats, or—?" 

"That'd be great!" Miharu said, unleashing his full "little devil" grin on them both before stepping back. From the way Tasuku was blinking at him, it had worked, which was convenient. 

"Come on, Tsubaki," he muttered, and the other boy threw Miharu a skeptical work. Okay, so the smile didn't work on this Tsubaki, but that was fine. You couldn't have everything. 

They were a little stiff at first, jerking a bit when Miharu moved around them to get a better angle, but Miharu kept going until they'd started to forget he was there and he'd taken a few pictures he thought he'd probably be happy with. 

Eventually he thanked them and left them alone. He talked with her and got a few shots—a few cats were older and needed medicine given to them, which led to some great moments in the back even if he had to give up the natural lighting and atmosphere of the main room. By the time he got back, however, Yukimi wasn't occupied only with the cats; he was talking with the long-haired person. 

Miharu paused, assessing the situation. Yukimi was sitting and the taller person was standing, almost looming over him—not a great sign. They were both looking at...a cat. Possibly better, but not necessarily. The stranger wasn't smiling...

...And Yukimi wasn't either, Miharu realized, and part of him relaxed slightly. A Yukimi who smiled too widely at a stranger was often a Yukimi in need of rescuing, he'd found. Especially when he was talking to someone alone. 

At first, he'd started getting in the way of people flirting with Yukimi because it was funny and he could throw in some "Yukimi-papa" jokes, but after the first few times, he'd realized that Yukimi would occasionally look a little relieved when he did it. A little more observation and it had occurred to him that aside from Hanabusa, who was safely taken, he'd never seen Yukimi seriously flirt with anyone. They'd never really discussed it, but ever since he'd noticed the pattern, Miharu had begun to quietly run interference when they were out somewhere and somebody seemed to want to talk to Yukimi alone _too_ badly. 

This...didn't look like that, though. They looked like they were having fun, and Yukimi actually barked out a laugh before he caught sight of Miharu. He waved him over, and Miharu went, albeit reluctantly. 

"Hey kid," he said as he came over. "This is Anonymous-san. Apparently she knows at least half the NPOs in Onomichi." 

"Really?" Miharu eyed her. Anonymous, huh? 

"Yeah," Yukimi said, a tiny, genuine smile curling the corner of his mouth. "Any other cat café recommendations?" 

"Cats and cafés...well, other than this place, I can do you one or the other," Anonymous said. Pulled a business card from her pocket, and flipped it down at him. "But knowing you, you might be interested in both." 

She turned her gaze to Miharu—eyed him head to toe in a glance, as though he was about to be summarily dismissed. But then she kept looking, and her mouth curled a bit with a hint of humor. 

"You're taking photos, right?" she asked. "You should talk to Misora. Their outfit is really cute today." 

Miharu nodded and bowed a bit, automatically, but caught Yukimi's eye before he left, still wondering if he needed rescuing. 

Yukimi looked...okay, though. A little incredulous, a little intrigued, but mostly like he was having fun. He caught Miharu's eye and shrugged minutely, turning his gaze back to Anonymous. "I don't suppose you could give me a little more background on those, then?" he asked. 

"You can ask," Anonymous said, all business, finally sitting in the chair across from him and leaning forward, elbow propped on one knee. "I might even answer." 

Miharu, knowing dismissal when he saw it, decided to stop delaying the inevitable. He walked over to the teenager in the sundress, and, as a sparkle caught his vision, blessed his well-trained eye for detail. 

"Misora-san, right?" he said. "Your nails are fantastic." 

A gaze that reminded him an awful lot of Anonymous's jabbed at him for a moment, and then vanished as Misora grinned, smug. "They are, aren't they?" 

Misora stretched out a hand in front of themself, admiring, and Miharu leaned in a bit to see. Tiny jeweled fish popped in and out of Misora's nails, all colors of the rainbow. 

"Yes," he agreed, and stepped back, already thinking about how best to frame the contrast of those nails against fur. "If you wouldn't mind, I'm here with the journalist over there. He's writing an article about this place, and we wanted some pictures of guests with the cats..." 

**Author's Note:**

> For this crossover, I decided that canon for Nabari took place a few years before canon for _Shimanami Tasogare_ , so Tasuku, Tsubaki, and Miharu are all around the same age. I tried to leave it ambiguous whether Tasuku and Tsubaki got/will get together (most likely answer: they're still trying to figure out if that's right for them), and I'm headcanoning for the sake of this fic that Misora is still exploring things too, and possibly considering identifying as nonbinary. There are a lot of possible interpretations for these universes—that's one of the cool things about future fics—but I hope these ones are interesting, at least. 
> 
> Also, this seemed like the place to end at the story, but because I couldn't fit it in: It isn't a question of _if_ high school!Misora would roast college!Miharu's fashion choices, but _when_. (I like to think they'd get along quite well, though.) 


End file.
